cloaking device non-quirks

[Smivs]

I have a faint impression somewhere in the back of my head that the equipment installed last ... is most likely to take damage.

Damn, there goes my Beer Cooler

[maik]

I have a faint impression somewhere in the back of my head that the equipment installed last ... is most likely to take damage.

Damn, there goes my Beer Cooler

On the positive side, the Beer Cooler heroically saved your other last installed piece of equipment

[Loxley]

I wish it would save my fuel scoops. I swear they get blown off in every third system.

Ah well, at least my beer is cool.

[Cody]

I have a faint impression somewhere in the back of my head that the equipment installed last (and who knows, perhaps "repaired last" qualifies as well) is most likely to take damage.

Hmmm… don’t know about that. I think I’ll put it down to O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law:
‘The perversity of the Ooniverse tends towards a maximum’.

[Albee]

Reading this thread, it's not clear whether you guys are happy with the current situation or not. I have to say, I'm not. The cloaking device is a big disappointment, in that I'm now invincible.

I've just had a flight in which I spotted a suspicious looking bunch of ships. (If pirates were really smart they'd fly in a neat chevron to lull innocent traders like me into a false sense of security. Whenever I see that formation on the scanner, I relax, as I know they're 'clean').

But I digress. The bunch spotted me and closed in. I cloaked, at which point they didn't disperse, but continued to drift along in loose formation. Just out of interest, I refrained from attacking, but de-cloaked instead and drifted along with them. Sure enough, after 20 secs or so they re-aquired me, at which point I cloaked... and so it went on.

The problem is, it seems to me, 20 secs is far too long -- plenty of time to kill one, cloak, uncloak, chase after the next, kill him, cloak, uncloak, and so on and so forth. It's what I did, in fact, taking out a Python and six escorts in the process, all at zero risk. No fun at all.

I suppose someone might say, if it's no fun using the cloaking device, then don't. Okay, that will work, but it's still a disappointment. I remember this piece of equipment from Elite, and how surprised and delighted I was to get it. (Nothing about it in the manual, as I recall, and I only scooped it up by chance. I then had to find a keyboard key to trigger it -- again, I'm pretty sure there was no hint in the manual, so it was trial and error time).

I ask myself, what would I do if I were a member of a pirate wolf-pack, knowing there was a killer ship in the vicinity with a cloaking device? I wouldn't hang around, for sure -- I'd take off at max injector speed then Torus to safety as soon as possible. From comments above, it sounds as if that's what they're supposed to do, but my recent lot certainly didn't.

Can I ask Those-Who-Decide-Such-Things to please look again at pirate AI in this regard?

Just out of interest, can I also ask what triggers the "whoop-whoop-whoop" when danger is near? I'm asking in both a programming sense and a handwavium sense. As regards handwavium, it can't be the fact I've been targeted, can it? GalCop must target me all the time, yet the alert only sounds when pirates are closing in.

[cim]

Just out of interest, can I also ask what triggers the "whoop-whoop-whoop" when danger is near? I'm asking in both a programming sense and a handwavium sense. As regards handwavium, it can't be the fact I've been targeted, can it? GalCop must target me all the time, yet the alert only sounds when pirates are closing in.

Handwavium: Missile lock rather than ident lock. (Yes, even for ships that don't have missile pylons the two are distinguished)

Programming: the ship must be targeting you and in a "hostile behaviour" AI mode.

[Commander McLane]

I've just had a flight in which I spotted a suspicious looking bunch of ships. (If pirates were really smart they'd fly in a neat chevron to lull innocent traders like me into a false sense of security. Whenever I see that formation on the scanner, I relax, as I know they're 'clean').

If pirates were really really smart they weren't marked as offenders or fugitives. Apparently they aren't that smart.

I ask myself, what would I do if I were a member of a pirate wolf-pack, knowing there was a killer ship in the vicinity with a cloaking device? I wouldn't hang around, for sure -- I'd take off at max injector speed then Torus to safety as soon as possible. From comments above, it sounds as if that's what they're supposed to do, but my recent lot certainly didn't.

You're right, that's what they're supposed to do, but for some reason aren't doing reliably. Their AI tells them to run away when they're in attack mode and their target cloaks. Maybe in (too) many cases they aren't in attack mode (yet) when the player cloaks, thus they behave as if the player had run away, and just assume a new lurking position. A deadly mistake. By the way: you can make them run away regardless of what they're currently doing if you attack them whilst cloaked.

Just out of interest, can I also ask what triggers the "whoop-whoop-whoop" when danger is near? I'm asking in both a programming sense and a handwavium sense. As regards handwavium, it can't be the fact I've been targeted, can it? GalCop must target me all the time, yet the alert only sounds when pirates are closing in.

The red alert is triggered when another ship makes you its active target. This is different from simply being scanned, which is what the police are doing. It's the next step after the scanning, so to speak. And about the only reason for a ship to make another one its active target is the intention to attack. Thus the alarm is triggered. An in-game explanation could be that your sensors sense the other ship's missiles locked on you.

[Cody]

The cloaking device is a big disappointment, in that I'm now invincible.

Don't worry Albee, when your cloak gets damaged (tricky to get fixed and very expensive), you'll no longer be invincible!

[Eric Walch]

Just out of interest, can I also ask what triggers the "whoop-whoop-whoop" when danger is near? I'm asking in both a programming sense and a handwavium sense.

When you mean the sound when cloaked: Technically speaking, 'Scan for merchantMen' as used by the pirates still finds you when cloaked and start hostile behaviour. That triggers the red alert and a sound. But at the moment they start an attack, the code sees it is cloaked and looses target. That resulted in a 'special' behaviour and sound against some attackers. I do know that similar behaviour is fixed with the thargoids. Their 'scan for non-thargoids' no longer find cloaked targets at all.
I think the current behaviour still makes it possible to find a cloaked target with AI alone and fly to that location. That is probably also the reason I never made a start of fixing this. It is just the attacking that makes a npc ship loosing a target. When you are very exact, you see that also the player is able to find 'cloaked' ships by sight, just not by scanner.

[Cody]

the player is able to find 'cloaked' ships by sight, just not by scanner.

Dogfighting with cloaked NPCs is excellent fun - turn the hud off and go find them!

[another_commander]

The cloaking device is a big disappointment, in that I'm now invincible.

Maybe this will make you slightly happier or maybe it won't, but you can try the following:
1. Make a folder called Config (note capitalization) inside AddOns.
2. Inside Config, create an empty file called shipdata-overrides.plist.
3. Inside shipdata-overrides.plist, paste the following:

Code: Select all

{
	"cobra3-player" =
	{
		cloak_passive = yes;
	};
}

If you are not flying a Cobra MkIII, use the shipdata key of the ship you are flying instead of cobra3-player.
4. Save the file and run Oolite.

This will make the cloaking device of your ship go to passive mode. Meaning, you can be cloaked all you want, but the moment you chose to fire any weapon, the cloak disengages. This makes the player ship somewhat less of an indestructible superweapon and combat itself a tad more interesting.

[Commander McLane]

I ask myself, what would I do if I were a member of a pirate wolf-pack, knowing there was a killer ship in the vicinity with a cloaking device? I wouldn't hang around, for sure -- I'd take off at max injector speed then Torus to safety as soon as possible. From comments above, it sounds as if that's what they're supposed to do, but my recent lot certainly didn't.

You're right, that's what they're supposed to do, but for some reason aren't doing reliably. Their AI tells them to run away when they're in attack mode and their target cloaks. Maybe in (too) many cases they aren't in attack mode (yet) when the player cloaks, thus they behave as if the player had run away, and just assume a new lurking position. A deadly mistake.

Hm. I've looked into pirateAI and I think the problem may be elsewhere.

In fact, as I said, all pirates who are already in attack mode do try to run away. However, they only run away to 7500 meters from their current position in any direction. This leads to two possible problems: (1) 7500 meters is way below safe distance from the cloaked opponent, and (2) because they're taking a random direction they are as likely to fly towards you as they are to fly away. It would be better if they would head roughly for the opposite direction of the last known position of the cloaked opponent.

Also, there is no speed for running away defined, which probably means that they won't use their injectors to get away, even if using injectors for covering a distance of just 7500 meters would make sense in the first place.

The other side of this behaviour (and perhaps the reason why it was coded that way) is that the pack will more or less stick together. Each ship fleeing let's say 30000 meters to a random direction would disperse the pack very quickly.

It's an open question, though, whether this plays out as an advantage or as a disadvantage. Generally it's an advantage for the pack to stay together and attack together. However, this turns into a disadvantage if the pack stays close to each other only to be slaughtered one by one. In this case spreading out may lead to the advantage of sheer survival for at least some of the pack, because the cloaked opponent cannot pursue into every direction, and pursuing any fleeing ship will draw him away from the others.

[Eric Walch]

Also, there is no speed for running away defined, which probably means that they won't use their injectors to get away, even if using injectors for covering a distance of just 7500 meters would make sense in the first place.

The other side of this behaviour (and perhaps the reason why it was coded that way) is that the pack will more or less stick together. Each ship fleeing let's say 30000 meters to a random direction would disperse the pack very quickly.

I made the change. Main reason was that before, ships just went idle after the target cloaked and became a sitting duck, even when being hit. Now it reacts on hits by cloaked (or unknown source). That feels already much better.

For the direction of running away there were just two options available with the AI system:
- Exactly away of the cloaking position. But that keeps the ship in the line of fire when the cloaking ship did not move.
- Random direction. Could be a wrong direction but mostly a good one.

The length was just set sort to 7500 meter to prevent the player to send the target far away by just using a short cloak moment.

Now the feature freeze is over, we could think of creating new AI commands. e,g. storeTarget and recallLastTarget. The first could be used on cloaking of the target. The second can than be used in a loop by the pirateAI while fleeing for a cloaked ship until it finds the target again, or after it times out by reaching a distant spot. That would give a very fast reaction on de-cloaking of the target.

[Eric Walch]

Now the feature freeze is over, we could think of creating new AI commands. e,g. storeTarget and recallStoredTarget. The first could be used on cloaking of the target. The second can than be used in a loop by the pirateAI while fleeing for a cloaked ship until it finds the target again, or after it times out by reaching a distant spot. That would give a very fast reaction on de-cloaking of the target.

I now have been writing some code to implement this and tested it. Looks interesting with pirates. They keep flying away until de-cloaking. I added a short reaction pause, but after that short delay, they immediately resume attacking the de-cloacked ship. That makes the cloak a bit more realistic and gives less chance of cheating by using a short burst of cloak and than de-cloak immediately to save energy.

And of cause missiles needed that code also. When cloaking, the missile does not explode, but heads for the last known location of the ship. (That part was already part of the trunk change). But, now when de-cloaking it resumes tracking the target.
On testing that feels correct and will prevent the use of the cloak as an alternative ECM against hardheads. You now really have to stay cloaked when you want to deceive the missiles.

When I'm finished testing, I put it in trunk for others to test. And than we can decide if the changed AI should stay in Oolite itself or only made available for third party use (read oxp AI's)

And it won't change the game for starters as it will take some time until they obtain a cloak.

[CommonSenseOTB]

Now the feature freeze is over, we could think of creating new AI commands. e,g. storeTarget and recallLastTarget. The first could be used on cloaking of the target. The second can than be used in a loop by the pirateAI while fleeing for a cloaked ship until it finds the target again, or after it times out by reaching a distant spot. That would give a very fast reaction on de-cloaking of the target.

...fireLaser...